First of all I have to say Age of Empires 3 is a great game, and its my favorite of the franchise due to the uniqueness of each civ. But as a Chinese player who know lot about China’s military history I would say the developer really didn’t know too much about ancient China therefore many features did not match the time period.
First of all they gave China Japanese Villagers (clothing) which in it self has errors, it did not make sense as all men in China under the rule of the Qing Dynasty (flag) was forced to adopt Manchu clothing, a common Qing Dynasty working class cloth should consist a long-sleeved shirt (sometimes extend to the mid thigh) with traditional Chinese knots tied on the top right, and wide pants with socks tied over the edge.
The monks clothing is also wrong looks more like Taoist clothing but cant be sure, surprisingly the disciple actually had the right clothing.
Second are the CKNs!!! A CKN that tiny probably finds it hard to pierce through the first layer of skin cells at range, let along going through armor and from my knowledge it was NEVER used for warfare (except giant ones mounted on walls and ships) as anyone with a brain would know there aren’t enough power behind the damn thing. so a more suitable option is to change the CKN with for a more traditional recurve bow as Manchus are known for their archery. As a person who practiced with Qing bows they are known for their heavy draw weight and heavy arrows they used which are very deadly. Plus did anyone notice the CKNs are upside down because the magazine box should be on top XD.
I have seen which painting the developer based the Chinese arquebusier on and I think its not a very good example since its a foreign depiction and due to the lack/misunderstanding on Chinese culture there might be mistakes. Below are a better examples of Qing dynasty arquebusier in the 18th century (same period as the drawing above).
arquebusier and “hu dun pao” hand cannons
Weapons like flamethrower, flying crow are only in military text written during the Ming dynasty (dynasty before Qing) highly doubt they every made past theories, could change them to the imported Portuguese cannon called “hongyipao” or red barbaric cannon which was prized for its effectiveness and played a major role in late Ming to early Qing Dynasty. and finally no comment on iron flail, meteor hammer and in game “Manchu”.
Wish Ming and Qing were split up so you don’t have the mess China has rn and if anyone making mods on China I can certainly help.